


A Good Kind of Tired

by iolanthe_rosa



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-04
Updated: 2004-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iolanthe_rosa/pseuds/iolanthe_rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Self-indulgent, plotless, schmoop. I mean really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Kind of Tired

One thing Elijah had developed over the last years was a keen familiarity with exhaustion in all its myriad forms. There was the exhaustion you felt after a hard day of work – that was a good kind of tired. There was the exhaustion you felt after fighting with your boyfriend – that was a bad kind of tired. There was partying-too-much exhaustion, just-had-an-appendectomy exhaustion, been-playing-too-many-video-games exhaustion, and I’m-just-plain-exhausted exhaustion.

And then there was the exhaustion you felt after a press tour like the one he had just completed. That particular fatigue was in a class entirely by itself. Answering the same questions over and over again. Avoiding answering the same questions over and over again. Giving and giving and never getting back. Crossing and re-crossing time zones until you didn’t know what planet you were on, let alone what country you were in. It was like having your soul sucked from your body. If not for the occasional interaction with the fans and the support of his fellow cast-members, he would have run off to Tasmania months ago.

And now it was over. Over forever.

Another year. This month he was going to be 23. Elijah was finally beginning to appreciate how fast time could go by. His mother was always going on about it: “It seems like just yesterday that you were climbing all over the furniture, and Hannah was getting into my make-up drawer! And now look at you!” Good son that he was, Elijah let her carry on, and gave her a hug when her eyes would start to fill. But he never really understood it. Not really. Until now.

Had he really been only 18 when he set off to film Rings? Had it been over 4 years already? The blink of an eye. He felt like he had done and seen a lot in the years before he left for New Zealand. But that was nothing compared to what he had accomplished and experienced since he set foot on that plane. This past year alone he felt like he had lived a hundred lifetimes.

With the release of each movie of the trilogy, Dom and Elijah had learned to ride the chaos wave: press leading up to the first premiere, chaos, more premieres, more press, more chaos, Christmases that came and went practically unacknowledged, a slight easing of the chaos, leading to a huge New Year’s party, then – exhaustion.

Dom and Elijah had learned the hard way that there was nothing like a quiet holiday at the end of it all to help restore their spirits and energy. Last year, they had discovered the English Lake District with Billy. They decided to return this year, just the two of them.

It was harder than they expected to find a hotel that would be open in the depths of winter, but at last they had found an English country house hotel called Fawe Park near the town of Keswick on Derwentwater. And, best of all, they were the only guests. They could have all the privacy they so badly wanted and needed.

***

Elijah was seated in a big, soft armchair in the sitting room of the hotel, which was situated halfway up a hill. A large picture window looked out onto a balcony and then over Derwentwater to the imposing mountains beyond. “Fells,” they were called locally. Frosty fells, Elijah mused, frozen frigid frosty fells. The clouds were moving quickly and their shadows scudded across the surface of the water, blue, black, grey, blue, black, grey. Elijah was just drifting into a doze when he was startled awake by Dom’s sudden appearance on the balcony on the other side of the window.

“Lijah! Come on!” He could just hear Dom’s muffled voice. He was gesticulating with his arms; he seemed to be holding a small book in each hand.

The last thing Elijah wanted to do was get up and go out into the cold. But Dom was excited about something, and Elijah knew that resistance was futile. “Okay, okay I’m coming,” he said, even though he knew Dom could not hear him.

Elijah heaved himself out of the soft armchair. He was convinced that act was the hardest thing he had ever done. He put on his scarf and brown corduroy jacket and opened the door that led to the balcony. From there, there was an unobstructed view down to the lake. The well-tended grounds of the estate lay between the balcony and the lake. The trees were bare; the long expanse of lawn was grey with frost.

The dry, cold air struck Elijah’s face like a hand slap. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “Fucking cold,” he muttered as he hurried over to where Dom was standing, leaning against the railing. He fumbled for a cigarette. At least his lungs could be warm. Damn. Where were his cigarettes? No matter how securely he thought he had stored them in his pocket, they somehow always seemed to fall out. It was as if the jacket had a mind of its own, he thought with irritation. “Fucking cold,” he repeated.

“It’s Winter in Northern England, dickhead. What did you expect?” Dom responded to Elijah’s grumbles. He put his arm around Elijah’s shoulders and pulled him tightly against himself. “You’ll never guess! The hotel manager told me that Beatrix Potter lived in this house when she wrote ‘Squirrel Nutkin’ and ‘Peter Rabbit!’ He gave me the books. Look,” he said, pointing to a small wooded island a few hundred feet from the lake’s edge. “There’s Squirrel Nutkin’s Island! It looks just like the picture in the book!” He held it open to a page with a picture of a squirrel sailing on a raft.

“Oh yeah. Sure enough. That’s it, alright,” Elijah answered, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which was not much. “I never read ‘Squirrel Nutkin.’”

Dom let out an exaggerated sigh. “Illiterate American.” Dom was always teasing Elijah about his backwards American schooling.

“Yeah. I know,” Elijah played along. “My education was an abomination.”

Dom snorted. “I’m surprised you even know such a long word. Anyway, that’s Nutkin’s island. No doubt about it. See? the shape is exactly the same!”

Elijah was amused by Dom’s excitement. You never knew what was going to turn Dom on. That was one of the things he loved about him. Dom could get passionately excited about just about anything, given half a chance.

“And see over there?” Dom pointed off to the right and held up the other book. There’s the greenhouse from ‘Peter Rabbit.’ And that’s where Mr. McGregor’s vegetable garden was, just below it. My mum used to read us ‘Peter Rabbit’ all the time, you know. It was my favorite.”

Elijah laughed at that. “I’ll bet it was! You related to that naughty little rabbit, didn’t you?”

“Of course I related to him. He was a rebel, you know. A rabbit rebel.”

Elijah sighed wistfully. “I was more the Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail type.”

“I know, Lijah,” Dom said, giving him an affectionate squeeze, “You were always such a good little bunny,” he crooned, kissing him on the temple.

“I was.”

“But it’s more fun to be a naughty little bunny, isn’t it?” Dom whispered into his ear.

“It sure is.” Elijah smiled to himself. Definitely more fun.

They stood together in companionable silence for a moment.

“Hey, Lij, I’ve got an idea. All this talk about Peter Rabbit has got me thinking.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go fuck like rabbits!”

Elijah laughed out loud and grabbed Dom’s hand. “Brilliant!”

 

***  
Their bedroom was over the downstairs sitting room and it shared the same view across the lake. The sun penetrated the window, making the room warm and bright. If not for the dull ice that rimmed the lake and frosted the fell-tops, there would have been no way to know that it was freezing outside. Elijah was still feeling chilled from his brief trip outdoors. He hurriedly cast off his clothes, crawled under the covers, and curled up on his side. Dom followed soon after and draped himself across Elijah’s back, warming him.

After a moment, Elijah rolled over and faced Dom. “So how do rabbits fuck, exactly?”

Dom considered this for a moment. “I think I read somewhere that the slightly smaller rabbit bottoms from the top.”

“Oh you did, did you?”

“Yeah. I remember now. I saw it on telly. I think it was a David Attenborough documentary.”

“Don’t know how I missed that.”

“Nor I. It was a good one.”

"Okay then. Far be it from me to question David Attenborough."

Elijah pushed himself up on one elbow, then flung his leg over Dom, so that he was straddling him. He rested his weight lightly on Dom’s tummy, capturing Dom’s cock between his buns and pressing against him. Dom’s eyes rolled back in his head. “Yeah…yeah,” he whispered as his cock hardened between them. Dom clumsily reached over to the nightstand and fumbled for the bottle of lube. He passed it wordlessly to Elijah.

Elijah prepared Dom, spreading the lube up and down his shaft and then applying some to himself. Raising himself above Dom, he slowly, so slowly, took Dom in, bit by bit, never breaking eye contact, slow penetration that left Dom gasping, opening and closing his mouth, making silent noises only Elijah could hear.

Dom looked at Elijah on top of him, rocking gently up and down, eyes closed, lost in his own world of sensation. He remembered Elijah’s initial self-consciousness the first few times they had made love, the shy explorations in darkened rooms. How different from the confident man atop him now, his naked body completely exposed and glowing in the thin winter light.

“Lijah. Stop. Open your eyes. Look at me.”

With effort, Elijah forced himself to open his eyes and to stop moving. Dom also stilled, and they locked gazes. The clear, bright light intensified the color of their eyes. For one crystalline moment, they stared at each other, entranced, sapphire reflecting smoke. Then Dom let his gaze travel down, taking in Elijah’s pale body, the rosy flush already blooming across his chest and neck. Elijah’s erect cock bobbed heavily over Dom’s tummy. Dom reached out and stroked it lightly with his fingertips. Elijah closed his eyes again; he tipped his head back and moaned.

“God, Dom. Oh, God.”

Dom picked up the pace and increased the pressure of his grip. Involuntarily, he thrust into Elijah. Elijah met Dom’s thrust with a grunt. They soon set up a rhythm: thrust, stroke, thrust, stroke, punctuated by Dom’s low groans and Elijah’s higher-pitched cries. The pace quickened and their deliberate rhythm dissolved into a staccato barrage of thrusts and strokes until, finally, Dom felt Elijah spurt, warm and sticky, onto his chest. Elijah felt Dom strain for that last, sweet quarter inch of penetration, and then felt his cock pulsing inside him as he climaxed hard.

Elijah fell forward. They lay there, chest to chest, until their breathing steadied. Then Elijah rolled off and rested his head on Dom’s shoulder.

“That was awesome,” he sighed. “Just awesome…I’m sure that was better than anything a pair of rabbits could manage.”

Dom wrapped his arm around Elijah’s shoulders. “I don’t know. There’s probably a good reason rabbits fuck like rabbits.”

But Elijah did not answer. The exhaustion of the last months had caught up with him at last. He could feel himself sliding into sleep, a sleep from which he knew he would awaken refreshed. His last thought before his world faded to white was that just-made-love-with-Dom exhaustion was the best kind of tired there was.


End file.
